Is ROM chip size really AMD's excuse for Zen 3 support?

AMD is claiming a lack of support for Zen 3 on B450 cause of the ROM chip size. Except with my old A320 board, you could just flash a new BIOS that would drop support for older CPUs to make space for supporting newer ones. The B450 board I have even has a 32MB ROM chip! What gives AMD? You have provided a workaround in the past but this time it's a no-go?

If I knew that, I would have waited for B550 or a sale on X570.

I bought a Zen 2 CPU and MSI B450 motherboard that was advertised as having support for all future AM4 chips. Although it's MSI's fault for advertising that, I think the reason they felt comfortable doing it cause they're just as blindsided by this announcement as I am. Because there's no reason B450 can't support Zen 3. Anyone with a reasonable understanding of motherboards knows the ROM chip excuse AMD gave for not supporting B450 is dishonest.

I specifically purchased a lower-end Zen 2 CPU and a B450 board with the intention of slotting in a higher end Zen 3 chip a few years down the line.

What the heck are you guys doing?!? Is anyone else being affected by this? I feel like most of us went with B450 (especially with lower end chips) cause we don't need the X570 feature-set. And B550 kept being delayed and AMD's own marketing (and marketing from board partners) made it appear B450 could support Zen 3.

Currently all hardware manufactures are still haveing issues with getting the chip to function all the way after its been pressed onto substrate. when its cut from the wafer it gets damged,

What does that have to do with Zen 3 support on B450? I'm not sure if you understand the issue I'm talking about. AMD has publicly said the reason B450 isn't getting Zen 3 support is the BIOS chip size. Except there's plenty of B450 boards with 32MB ROM chips rather than 16MB ones.

Furthermore, AMD has allowed board partners to provide support for Zen 2 on motherboards that weren't officially supported. Except this time AMD has confirmed they're locking out board partners via AGESA. It's anti-consumer, there's no way getting around it given AMD's current reasoning for blocking support.

Just get a B450 and when a B550 comes out give the B450 to a friend or something.

I already have a B450 board. Because B550 was delayed for a year and it made zero sense for me to get X570. I bought a board that explicitly advertised forward compatibility with all future AM4 CPU's. I don't have $100+ to burn. That's why I spent the extra money on an MSI MAX board with the 32MB chip. To ensure I didn't get a gimped BIOS when Zen 3 rolled around. Not only did 16MB not even get a gimped BIOS, 32MB board buyers are SOL as well.

I don't have any friends I can just give it to. The mobo pricing is part of the reason I bought what I did, now it's useless for when I want to slot in Zen 3. I'm posting here because I'm astounded that AMD thinks the reasoning they gave justifies their actions.

1. AMD previously allowed board partners to support new chips on "unsupported platforms". Now they're locking them out through AGESA.

2. The 16MB BIOS chip issue has already been worked around in the past. It doesn't seem insurmountable. This is the only reason they've publicly given.

3. Even if it was insurmountable, there's zero excuse for a lack of support for B450 mobos with 32MB chips.

4. AMD board partners advertised forward compatibility with all future AM4 chips. Cause that's what board partners and consumers were expecting. At no point did AMD try and nip it in the bud.

I was ordered MB a few days ago because I didn't likepoorsupport of MSI X370 mobo. I changed the vendor to ASUS, because thesituation when MB became crap in 6 months is unacceptable for me. I want to upgrade my 3rd gen Ryzen to the 4th gen. I thought about X470 MB because I don't need all these features with PCIe 4.0, and AMD advertised x470 boards as modern, fully supported. Only incidentally I took mobo on X570, but many of my friends didn't and they are really unhappy, and many of them understand this as cheating, every 5th promising to take Socket1200 MB instead of X570 or B550, the same number of friends said, OK then maybe better wait for AM5. If I were one of them I also prefer to skip the upgrade in this/next year. So if the decision made to earn more money, I would like to say that it will happen literally the opposite.

Thanks for this posting this topic amcmanus. I agree with what you have said. I also purchased a MSI B450 MAX motherboard, with promise of future support for AM4.

Given the delays for B550, essentially a year after Zen 2 release, this policy decision by AMD is very hard to take. This is not the kind of impression you want to make on someone newly moving to your platform. There is very little value to maintaining socket support if chipset support is not maintained along with it.

Glad to see AMD reverse a decision their competitors likely would not have.

It's important to remember that while some of us like supporting an underdog, the underdog is still a company.

An underdog that had the class action Bulldozer lawsuit and that had no issue raising up their prices to $1000 when they took the performance crown in the 2000s.

AMD deserves a pat on the back for this but nobody should kid themselves that their pro-consumer practices are anything more than a marketing angle to get a leg-up over Intel. As long as AMD retains the performance crown, they don't need to leverage their pro-consumer marketing nearly as much.

Don't be surprised if AMD rests on its laurels (the 4700G could indicate this if there's no proper 3700X replacement) and becomes more Intel-like the longer they stay on top. It's hard to tell if they're bumping up their APU to R7 without disrupting the rest of their product stack or if they're doing it cause Intel has nothing to show.

Competition is always good regardless if you support a particular company or not. At the end of the day it's just silicon and the price/performance should be what informs your purchasing decision.